Wisdom sometimes cames with age

In writing this article I followed names and links and ended up in a very different place than I started from. This was supposed to be as the title indicates. Security is an emotional subject and when decisions about security are made based on the emotions of the moment — we all suffer and the terrorists win again. So I took another look at a few of America’s home-grown terrorists to see if I could find whether they shared similar behavior traits with the Crotch bomber and the foreign Islamic extremists.

Our own home-grown terrorists are every bit as dangerous as the ones who attempt to use airplanes or get on airplanes to wreck their damage on innocent crews and passengers. Timothy McVeigh used a Rental truck loaded with fertilizer as his bomb. Nidal Malik Hansan’s killing ground was Fort Hood military base. The Crotch Bomber failed because of the heroic actions of the Flight Attendants and passengers. But the Crotch bombers failed efforts will have a larger impact on more innocent victims who will now be forced to stand endure even more waiting time and invasive x-rays.

Juan Cole has an article up about the Crotch Bomber (seems like this name is sticking). Apparently one of the knee jerk reaction is to “go get” the terrorists in Yemen. This is where the Crotch Bomber got his instructions and the special underwear. (Funny how there seems to be money to blow on another war but for no money for the health and well-being of American citizens. The Government apparently wants to keep everyone safe but not THAT safe.) Here’s some detail about Yemen located across the water from Somalia the home of the pirates preying on ships, tankers and yachts.

4. A US war on al-Qaeda in Yemen is next. This way of thinking is foolish. Yemen is not a cake walk, folks

I have been to Yemen three times, before and after unification, and have traveled outside Sanaa. I’ve spoken publicly in Arabic in front of big audiences and interacted with Zaidis, Salafis, Sufis. It is an extremely complicated society with multiple ecological zones. It is an arid, tribal (segmentary-lineage) system. Most of the scholars I know who work on Yemen have been kidnapped by tribes or thrown in jail by the government at least once. People are either Arab nationalists or Muslim ones. They have very little use for outsiders. If the US tried to establish a big presence there, they would make the Iraqi resistance look half-hearted and weak-kneed.

Anybody who thinks they are going to dominate this has another thing coming:

MoDo – Dowd of the NY Times came up with the scenario that I’ve been predicting since the Shoe Bomber — the Stupids in Washington respond to each incident by abusing the flying public. Seems like many of us are predicting that passengers will be flying virtually nude — by forcing everyone to strip and wear paper clothes and carrying absolutely nothing on board. We will be locked in our seats and only allowed potty breaks, escorted by armed guards. (As yet this is only a snarky prediction if we follow the logical consequences of first remove the shoes and then remove the . . . ) While terrorists run free to think up new ways to scare the politicians — paying airline passengers become the prisoners and pay for the “privilege”. Here’s the way MoDo wrote the total security outcome: “We are headed toward the moment when screeners will watch watch-listers sashay through while we have to come to the airport in hospital gowns, flapping open in the back.”

Hey MoDo is the Honeymoon over — so soon? She did of course, get in her usual dig at the Clintons, but she certainly has found her poison pen and is now using it against the incompetent ONE in the white house.

There is an article by Pam Fessler, NPR about the full body x-ray scanners: Fessler quotes Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information center, ” There is nothing to prevent images from being retained even when they say they won’t be retained.”

Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and favors the new machines, says finding a solution is not going to be easy. It’s always a delicate balance between privacy and security, he says.

(snip)

Thompson admits that it’s also likely that someday terrorists will find a way to evade the new machines, as they have other detection methods. That’s why most security experts say the country can’t rely on just one piece of technology, and that layers of security are necessary — such as effective watch lists, canine teams and monitoring of airport crowds for suspicious behavior.

As predicted there is a movement afoot demanding the installation of full body scanners. (This link has a lot of information about the full body scanners, no need to duplicate this blogger’s research.) Taking away more of innocent citizen’s privacy will do absolutely nothing to make the flying public safer. This is all for show — what should have been happening was a systematic identification of the individual unbalanced (crazy dogmatic, religious fanatics who also happen to be Islamic males). The crotch bomber fit bill for religious insane, dogmatic, Islamic male. Why was he allowed on the plane while babies are on that no fly list??

If the full body scanners are ultimately used on every single person flying — then I will no longer fly. Period. Because then I will know for certain that the flying public won’t be safe — when the politicians running “security” opt for the show of “safety” then in my humble opinion — I will NOT be safe. Anyone with common sense knows that spending wildly for show simply lets the bad guys know that they can think up yet another scheme and find another unstable rich kid to try out their plan — which is probably to scare the crap out of the politicians and the evil westerners into turning the west into Authoritarian Countries. Of course the politicians will insist that everyone go through the same strip searches via X-ray — that is just the PC way not to insult the Saudis or which ever rich nation is holding the money bags.

( Side note — SNARK alert. Then on the other hand if the Democrat Congress passes the POS health care — which is written to put the American middle class into the poverty class — flying anywhere will be the concern of only the very wealthy. But then the Crotch Bomber was of the upper class, he could pay over $1,000 in cash for his airline ticket. End Snark. )

Although I’m not a Security professional — I did grow up on very secure military bases that were the hot spots for the Cold War. As very young kids we learned who not to talk to, and to know how to spot people who didn’t belong. Spies could be anywhere we were told — and as kids we knew that we just might know something that the “enemy” might use to harm our fathers. It turns out that we did know secrets and we all kept quiet because the secrets weren’t exposed until after the cold war ended and our fathers had retired from the military. (The secrets were exposed by the media with the permission of the Federal Government.) What our dads would tell us was; if the security is so obvious that anyone could see what the methods were — then that security was just for show.

But then some of the biggest holes in military security came from within — the Walker family comes to mind.

John Anthony Walker, Jr. (b. 28 July 1937, Washington D.C.)[1] was a retired United States NavyChief Warrant Officer and communications specialist convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985, at the height of the Cold War (1945–91).[2] In late 1985, Walker pleaded guilty in a plea arrangement, whereby, he testified against co-conspirator Jerry Whitworth, gave details of his espionage, and negotiated lenient punishment for his son, Michael Walker.[2] During his time as a Soviet spy, CWO Walker helped the Soviets decipher more than two hundred thousand encrypted naval messages,[citation needed] organizing a spy operation that The New York Times reported in 1987 “is sometimes described as the most damaging Soviet spy ring in history.”[3]

Walker worked on nuclear subs and supposedly this branch of the military had the highest security.

Like my career military father would tell us — when there is too much show to demonstrate security — question the real security. As kids we were on and off base daily, going to school and other off base activities. Since we were born into the military and lived on base we learned to pick up little clues. But then our dads flew planes and there are very clearly different branches of the military with different rules and different levels of security. Also in the days following the September 11 terrorist attack military bases have become armed fortresses — and security has shifted. The people I know who work on military bases say that much of the security is more show than real. Security still relies on the individual to spot the strangers or strange behavior. Just like the passengers are the main defense against terrorists.

Problem is that the religiously insane are found on the fringes of ALL the mainstream fundamentalist religions. Although I’m not sure if Tim McVeigh was a member of any denomination. McVeigh was the guy who was responsible for one of the biggest acts of domestic terrorism in the US. He bombed a federal building.

Then there is this one little detail (sex or lack thereof) which seems to link three terrorists — Timothy McVeigh, the Crotch Bomber and Nidal Malik Hansan, psychiatrist also a U.S. Army major, who killed 13 and injured another 32, this happened on base at Ft. Hood, Texas. All three men had trouble attracting women, or couldn’t find a woman “perfect” enough (Hansan) or pious enough. Why would a woman want to enter their world? There was a reason that women stayed away in droves. Generally doctors are considered a “good catch” — but apparently there were no takers for Hansan. McVeigh or the Crotch Bomber didn’t have luck with women either. This could be a coincidence (or not).

According to his (Timothy McVeigh) authorized biography, “his only sustaining relief from his unsatisfied sex drive was his even stronger desire to die.”

Brian Levin of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism wrote that the case sits at the crossroads of crime, terrorism and mental distress.[74] He compared the possible role of religion to the beliefs of Scott Roeder, a Christian who murdered Dr. George Tiller, who practiced abortion. Such offenders “often self-radicalize from a volatile mix of personal distress, psychological issues, and an ideology that can be sculpted to justify and explain their anti-social leanings.”[74]

So the world is filled with really messed up people, many of these happen to be men and an even smaller minority act out their extreme beliefs. McVeigh was raised Catholic by wasn’t necessary religious, he claims to have retained the core Catholic values. Apparently both the Crotch Bomber and Hansan were very religious. Add to this the other home-grown terrorists, the abortion clinic bombers and the murders of doctors some of whom perform abortions as part of their medical practice.

The thing is that these individuals with extreme beliefs — which might lead them to extreme acts of violence can be identified. And this is where the limited funds for security need to be spent. Identification and profiling individuals who could be used by the cowards hiding in caves plotting death and destruction — carried out by others.
When I started writing this article I didn’t expect to find similar motives and behavior traits in seemingly different men from very different cultures. What I do know is that the virtual strip searchers won’t do a damned bit of good — and the images WILL end up in computer files somewhere. If we can imagine that this will happen — the idiots in DC already have bought the computers to store the images. These guys thrive on keeping data on everyone. After all their guide-book is called: 1984.

This blogger took the direction I was intending to go with details about the naked passenger machines. She also makes some of the same points that I made — sort of like shutting the barn door AFTER the horse escapes — method of airport security. Take our shoes off AFTER the shoe bomber made his abortive bombing attempt.